


Daffodil

by Nazemova



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Awkward Ben Solo, Awkward Romance, F/M, Florist!Ben, Punk!Rey, Stormpilot (mentioned)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 21:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nazemova/pseuds/Nazemova
Summary: Ben Solo gets an unexpected visitor on a Wednesday afternoon with a very specific request.





	Daffodil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Plutoascending91](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plutoascending91/gifts).



> Hello, and welcome to my first published fic in about 5 years. I saw this Prompt on the Reylo Fanfiction Anthology Valentines Exchange and couldn't get it out of my head. This is for Plutoascending91 who asked for a flower shop AU with floral print meets punk rock. 
> 
> Special shout out to Reyofdarkness for editing this! I make a lot of mistakes when I write and if it wasn't for them this work wouldn't be published at all!
> 
> Enjoy <3

Wednesdays were never busy at Imperial Floras, but Ben didn’t particularly mind. It gave him time to work on orders, arranging reds and whites into beautiful masterpieces of petals and stems.

It was never his dream as a child to be a florist; his imagination often led him to believe he would become a heroic pilot, much like his grandfather. That had changed when he was 17 and taken to Naboo House for the first time to visit his grandmother’s childhood home. That’s when he knew nature called to him.

Telling his family that he wanted to get a degree in organic biology and horticulture was not the easiest thing to explain, but he had survived, dreaming of red rose flower crowns and enchanted forests.

It’s what kept him calm, a trip to this fantasy world for a few moments at a time to keep him from lashing out at the misery of the real world.

It didn’t, however, help in any way with his awkwardness.

He wasn’t expecting any customers that afternoon, so he was rather surprised when he heard the bell on the door.

He had never seen this girl before. She was slim, with all of her exposed skin covered in colorful inks (and with the little black crop top and rips all over her grey denim jeans, the colours seemed endless).

Her boots made an awfully loud noise on the tiled floors as she walked over to the counter; he was half expecting her to scream at him by the way she was dressed. He couldn’t help but panic, not knowing why she had come in there and was stomping her way towards him.

Her fists slammed on the counter and he braced himself for her yells, her screams, her-

“Hey,” she said; curving the red paint on her lips into the biggest smile he had ever seen on another person. The crystals in her septum, lip, and ear piercings reflected in the sunlight coming through the window behind him when she tilted her head, placing her hand on her hip. “I’m looking for Ben, Ben Solo.”

If her manners didn’t shock him, her request definitely did. Only regulars would ask for specific people, and he had never seen this girl before.

“Well, uh,” he finally answered, not wanting to keep her waiting. He knew he was stumbling over his words; she would just have to get used to it. “That’s me. How can I help-”

She grabbed a piece of folded paper from her back pocket and handed it to him before he could finish. Even as she held it out to him, her lips never moved from the smile.

If anything, it only grew.

He got a good look at her hands as he took the paper from her. Her nails were bitten down as far as they could be. The top of her hand was covered in grey ink, drawn into an Asian elephant with its trunk running down her middle finger. Green leaves surrounded the animal, running up to her wrist before it broke into an assortment of images and words on her sleeve. So much detail had gone into her hand alone, it was intriguing, really.

His fascination had to be cut short, as he was curious about whatever was in that letter she had given him.

It didn’t take long to skim through the words written on the paper crinkled from being in the girl’s back pocket.

“Have you read this?” Ben asked her, his eyes widening as they darted through the words on the page. 

The girl in front him let out a little giggle; of course she had read it. 

“Best way to not leave a paper trail these days is to actually use paper!” she said with a wink. Her accent was the kind you’d often hear someone on TV speaking in, soft and elegant, a complete contrast to her appearance. 

Ben turned his attention back to the instructions in his hand and read over them carefully. 

_Ben _, it began, _I am writing this to you so I can place an order with you. I have decided to propose to Finn in the coming weeks. In order to avoid suspicions, I have asked Rey to deliver this and collect the order so I can surprise Finn. She’s his best friend and the first person I asked to help, so if you have any questions, she’s your girl._ __

____

____

He looked back up at the girl in front of him, the one he presumed was this Rey person. 

The rest of the letter contained information about what kind of order he wanted: a bouquet filled with lilies, dahlias and zinnias, all in oranges and whites. 

He looked back up at the girl who had moved from in front of the counter to wander around the storefront, running thin fingers through metal vases filled with all sorts of flora. 

There were little details he missed about her the first time, like the forest green colour her brown hair graduated into, the two silver spheres that had been pierced into the back of her nape, and the red rose that surrounded the nearby skin. 

“You’re Rey?” he asked, trying to get her attention, realizing something as she turned to face him.

It was the open-mouthed smile she gave him that made his heart pounce out of his skin. 

“Yeah, Rey O’Jakku, at your service.” She winked at him for the second time that day, and Ben both praised and cursed Poe for having him meet such a beautiful person. 

“Do-eh,” he began not sure where he wanted his sentence to end. He ran a hand through his hair, thanking the maker he didn’t have it tied up. “D-do you have a date for this?”

Of course she does, he told himself. It was written at the bottom of the page, she must know how much of an idiot he was, how nervous he was right now, how much he was panicking over asking this girl a normal question about a stupid date. 

“I don’t.” There was a slyness in her voice. 

He could tell she was up to something. 

She smirked and leaned on the counter between them. Whatever lipstick she was wearing fitted her entire aesthetic, made her lips so lovely, so kissable...

“I don’t have a date,” she continued. “I’m free tonight if you want to go for a drink?”

She raised an eyebrow at him; she was a cheeky one. 

His cheeks were now on fire. If he didn’t think of himself as awkward before, he certainly did now. A stunning girl had come into the shop, covered in tattoos and piercings, and now she was flirting with him? Where did that even come from? Had she really used the collection date question as a segway to asking him out?

He would say that he was impressed by her confidence, but all he could manage was opening his mouth to say so, only to close it again after realizing how bad it sounded... more than once. 

It took a few minutes, but he eventually mustered up the courage to answer, a terrible answer, he would later tell himself. 

“I-I-I can’t...”

Rey looked at him, not with sadness, but with confusion. Her brows furrowed, wrinkling the wings of her eyeliner. “What?”

“I mean,” he fumbled with his fingers, intertwining them with each other. “I mean I can’t drink, I’m on medicine, I can’t have alcohol when I’m taking them, but I’d like to go out... with you. I’d like to go out with you, if you’d like?”

His heart was racing. What the fuck was that? Why did he just tell her that? Would she even be interested anymore? Was she even that interested in him to begin with? 

He could see her glancing at his trembling fingers before looking back to his face and beginning to chuckle. 

Maker, she looked so cute when she was trying to suppress her laughter, covering her mouth with her hand while subsequently getting red lipstick all over the elephant on her skin. 

“You’re ridiculous,” she giggled. Her smile was infectious, white teeth shining in the sunlight from the back of the shop. 

He couldn’t help but grin himself, his eyes never leaving her smile. 

“That’s perfectly fine, Ben!” As she spoke, she reached for the pen lying beside the register. “We can do something else if you want. We can see a film? Or go for coffee?”

He wouldn’t admit it until later how much her accent, her manner, and the colours that coated tanned skin and freckles fascinated him.

“There’s a nice coffee house down the street… if you’d like to go there? It’s called Hosnian, and it’s just a chill place for coffee. How about that?” He sounded nervous; it showed in his drifting eyes and quickened breathing. “I get off at 8?” No, that didn’t sound any better.

He was so preoccupied with it that he didn’t notice that she had started to write something on the back of Poe’s letter.

“Here.” Her voice was quiet but so sickly sweet. She handed back the single sheet, winking at him as she did.

Maker, she was gorgeous. He just hoped he didn’t look like a bumbling idiot in front of her.

Instead of what he feared (her rejection, or worse, secretly laughing at him), she smiled at him one last time. It was the first time he noticed her little dimples.

He smiled back; she was contagiously bright, so jubilant for someone who looked as she did, covered from head to toe in black lines intertwining, filled with brilliant colours. 

“I’ll see you at 8, then?” she said, never breaking the expression between them.

“8… yeah, 8 sounds good, sounds good.” He didn’t need to look down to know his hands were shaking profusely, but it didn’t matter. Rey had been oozing confidence from the moment she walked in until now, as she walked towards the front door, swinging her hips as she walked.

She had her hand on the door handle before she turned back to him one last time.

“I’ll pick you up at 8?”

Ben could only nod. He could hear little, inaudible noises coming from his mouth, hoping that she couldn’t hear them too.

She turned to exit, Ben noticing her nape piercing as it twinkled.

With that, she was gone, walking away from the glass door and windows of the store. He had to admit, his own smile had grown even by just encountering her.

He picked up his black leather satchel from the ground beside the metal legs of his stool. He cursed himself for having so much junk in it, rummaging through to get what he wanted.

He hoped to the Maker that he had brought a hairbrush.


End file.
